Building your business’ reputation through blogging isn’t like those Fidelity commercials where the people look down, and all of a sudden there’s a green path, telling them exactly where to go. It’s not like the State Farm commercials where you can repeat a simple jingle, and someone appears to solve all your problems. Often the path is unclear. The right decisions can make you look like a genius, while the wrong ones can cripple. It’s a high-risk, high-reward game that takes patience and persistence to win.

The key is to stay active

While we don’t always have the right answers, we can at least study our options, analyze each one, and make the best decision possible. We have to keep moving and look for ways to attain better results.

This means:

Asking questions.

Exploring ideas.

Developing strategies.

Paying attention to what’s around us.

Analysts always say it’s tough for NFL teams to win a Super Bowl two years in a row. That’s because it’s hard to stay ahead of the rest of the league for that long. The same applies here. What’s a way to improve your platform that you haven’t tried before? What are the latest trends being talked about? If you’re not ahead with this, you’re behind. Successfully building your platform through quality content takes work

If you’re not evolving, you’re dying

This year, in addition to guest blogging, I’ve also been working strengthening my Google+ presence. I’ve joined several communities and generally become a whole lot more active. As the line between search and social continues to blur, Google+ will become a smart place for any business to be. Damian Farnworth and Copyblogger are doing some great work writing about Google+ for marketing your business. The bottom line is that the world around you doesn’t stand still, and neither should you.

Try finding new blogging ideas. Try promoting your blog in new places, and in new ways. Try writing articles, white papers, eBooks or other forms of content. When it works, do more of it. When it fails, keep moving. Stay active, and have patience. A high profile with thousands of followers, hundreds of blog comments and more money in sales than you are currently expecting doesn’t happen overnight.

It takes hard work, a willingness to explore new things, and a boatload of patience. Sometimes its takes a Mother Teresa-like level of trust to keep moving forward in the absence of clarity. Blogging done the right way requires a strong initiative. The businesses that are too afraid of failure to try anything are the businesses that will fall by the wayside.

Which type of business are you? What have you achieved in your attempts to connect with your audience?

Matt Brennan helps businesses improve their bottom line by connecting with their customer base on a human level. He offers content marketing solutions for businesses and organizations.